Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 February 1

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February 1

How do they get away with it ?

Back on January the First, someone, as far as I know, unsigned, asked why there were so many rip off movies. I think their specific peeve was in the realm of out and out copies, especially those with product placement. In the spirit then of copying , this has prompted me to ask a similar question as to how pardodies like Meet the Spartans, are allowed, when they obviously take a copyrighted idea and make fun of it - not that I mind. So what is protected by law, and do those who make fun of other movies have to ask permission or pay something ?

Also, what about those that take a similar idea? It has long been noted, after all, that Under Siege was a kind of ripoff of Diehard, and it could also be said that Mindhunters is a copy of movies like Ten Little Indians, as is any other movie such as The Cave, Alien franchise, House of Wax etc., where people are knocked off one after the other, until the White Anglo Saxon hero and the most attractive girl are left.

I get the idea that having a film where people are killed off one by one is not necessarily a copy if the basic premise differs, but it seems that Hollywood and every one else is kind of sometimes making the same sort of movies over again.

Another example of this is ones like The Nurse (Lisa Zane), The Stepdaughter (Andrea Roth),The Stepfather(Terry O'Quinn), The Perfect Tenant with Maxwell Caulfield - as well as another he did called Facing the Enemy, The Perfect Nanny (Tracy Nelson - also in the Perfect Tenant ), The Temp (Lara Flynn Boyle), and The Perfect Wife ( Shannon Sturges - who was born one day after I was ), among many others - all good, though, but the same idea of someone who is not who they seem to be. Once in a while this is fine, but it would be good to see something completely new.

One other thing I have noticed is that there will be a movie on I know to have been either a true story or at least to have some true to life people in it, yet at the end some of them say the story and all characters are completely fictitious. Now I know sometimes they do acknowledge a true story as such, either based on or inspired by, with composite characters and other dramatic licences sat, passed, and even faked, but if a story has some truth in it, surely even that should be acknowledged. An example might be the incredibly entertaining film Dick ( Dan Hedaya ), showing portrayals of people like Woodward and Bernstein, John Dean III, Bob Haldeman, among many others. Now I cannot be sure if they said at the end of this none of it was real, but what if they did ? Could they claim to say so, since although such people exist, the portrayals of them in this film are not all true ? Chris the Russian Christopher Lilly 07:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's often been said that there are only X number of plots in Hollywood. See this book for example which says that there are only 7. I'm sure if you look back far enough, you'll see that Diehard wasn't the first "one-forgotten-man-saves-the-whole-group" type of story. As for Meet the Spartans, see parody. Oh, and finally, if the filmmakers say that a story is based on someone's life or that the story was inspired by them or whatever, then they would owe those people a part of the profits since they are profiting off of their lives. If the filmmaker says that it's all made up, they don't have to pay them anything. Also, they will avoid defamation lawsuits if the subject of the film doesn't like how they are portrayed. Dismas|^(talk) 07:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

See also our article on all persons fictitious disclaimer. the wub "?!" 13:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank You. I think someone told me about that idea - might have been my brother in law. And as I noted - it certainly seems that way. My brother in law also mentions the idea of tropes, which I assume are repeatable things that occur in movies, such as, in a thriller, someone is looking for the creepy secret in a dark house ( with accompanying scary music, which sounds like it is coming to a climax ), and a cat jumps out and scares him - or the usual Freddy Kruger type has been killed, but jumps up for one last scare, as noted in the Scream franchise. I have also been led to understand that there is a difference between the terms " inspired by true events " and " based on a true story ", although, when one thinks about it, there is probably always some element of truth in any movie, no matter how false it is.Chris the Russian Christopher Lilly 08:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

In regards to tropes, see TV Tropes. Dismas|^(talk) 09:17, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Remember, no matter how much a story is "inspired by" or "based on" true events, the primary purpose of creators of fiction (be they books, movies, or TV shows) is to entertain. Insofar as historical events and real life have elements which provide entertainment, writers and directors will borrow from those real situations to add to their story. However, being that they are still writing fiction, and not historical analyses, the primary purpose is to present the maximally entertaining story in the format in question; and if that means that the writers make changes to reality to make it more entertaining, so be it. If a "inspired by true events" movie encourages you to learn about the real story, then that's great, but don't ever assume that any thing reported in a work of fiction as having any actual reliable connection to real events. Writers will borrow actual facts and use them as needed, but they aren't bound to be factual in everything, and they won't. My actual favorite trick was the one used in Fargo, where they put the based on a true story bit in the front; and in reality, other than a few minor events, like the wood-chipper bit, cobbled together from a few actual murders, the story is completely made up. They put the "based on a true story" tag to add to the dramatic tension in the movie, not because it actually was. As Ethan Coen said "If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept." In other words, even the claim that the story is true is itself part of the fictional narrative. --Jayron32 15:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Plan 9 from Outer Space was even bolder than the norm, as it was "based on sworn testimony." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Specifically regarding "Meet the Spartans": while some parody-makers have been successfully sued by original copyright holders, this kind of thing generally falls under "Fair use" provisions in (US) copyright law. See Fair use and parody. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

You'd probably be interested in mockbusters. Staecker (talk) 20:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Also see MacGuffin, which Alfred Hitchcock described as, "The 'thing' the characters in the movie are looking for," and that it doesn't matter specifically what that "thing" is, because "the audience don't care." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I can understand all of that. Thank You all. One thing I would still like to see, is someone making movies that are as true to life as they can be, and may be exciting anyway without having to be changed. I see they make recreations of action for historical documentaries. Now when you're watching a doco, you do at least expect that to be true. And sure, if someone makes a movie based on real events which is not all true but at least gets you to find out what really happened, fine, but it would also be good once in a while to have a film that is as real to historical fact as it can get.

Granted, as I said, we may not have a record of all dialogue spoken at say Agincourt nearly six hundred years ago, but I understand that for the very attractive Milla Jovovich's Joan of Arc they did use actual verbatim court transcript for the trial scenes - I have yet to see this movie, but would love to. It can be said that the making of Frank Miller's 300 did push me to watch the documentary made on the battle of Thermopylae, as well as look up on Wiki what really did occur, accepting that he did write a graphic novel as opposed to a history text. I hope younger people would consider learning about history due to movies presented to them in this more popular format.

Or say a film is made and you at least have director's or writer's commentary on what they did make up. I do enjoy historical fiction. I like Sharpe's Company and Redcoats both by Bernard Cornwell, as well as RD Blackmore's Lorna Doone, introducing actual historical characters interacting with the ones those writers have made up. This gives those stories a kind of realistic feel, as long as it is ultimately clear what is fiction and what is fact.

This reminds me of an interesting incident from about thirty years ago. In New Zealand my mother and aunties used to watch a show called Close to Home, set in the Wellington/Hutt Valley area, which went from 1975 to 1983. At one stage there was a particularly evil character on this soap opera type show - like a JR Ewing or some such. His character ended up being murdered, but before that, some woman saw the actor portraying him walking down the street and attacked him, thinking it was all real. Sometimes this is where it goes too far - consider Orson Welles' little radio play that was taken too seriously that time.

But when all is said and done, as long as we do know the difference, we can all enjoy the creations of movie and TV makers, whether true, utter lies, or somewhere in between. The bit about Fargo ( a great movie ) being true I swallowed too, but was concerned as to why they would let a pregnant lady remain on duty, considering any possible danger to her baby if she had gotten shot. I guess indeed excitement and some degree of unreality do sell better than something rendered as a complete documentary, when what you may want at the time is pure entertainment. As I was even watching The King's Speech ( brilliant - my pick for Best Picture ), I was wondering which parts they had made up, and knew some of which they had not. Chris the Russian Christopher Lilly 06:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, sometimes historical accuracy is at least attempted to be preserved as best as possible in the two-hour format, but often times real characters are modified slightly because of the constraints of the format. The film Fat Man and Little Boy does a pretty good job of getting the Manhattan Project stuff right, but for various reasons certain liberties are taken with the ordering of events, and certain actual minor historical players are "composited" into a single, fictional character. For example, the John Cussack part is actually based on the real stories of two different scientists, being Louis Slotin and Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. Most of the other major roles in the film, such as General Leslie Groves and scientists Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard and Edward Teller were based as closely as possible to the history and personality of their real-life counterparts. The plot also takes some liberties with the chronology of the development of the bomb, again because it had to fit into the standard Feature Length time window. --Jayron32 06:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank You for replying so quickly - I was just clicking on the links I had been given, and the one on Mockbusters gave me an idea to comment further on. Why do some people get upset at what could be considered free advertising ? Here in New Zealand someone painted Disney™ characters on a public loo. This was not meant as an insult, but to make it look nicer for the kids, and they got sued. The idea in painting the toilets was not to profit from Disney™ , but in the end they had to paint over it. There was another furore over a store in a small town here having a shop called Haralds, and of course Harrod's™ had a fit about it.

I do not believe someone should profit from someone's idea without at least some consideration - a small percentage or something - or my idea is that those parodied then parody the parodiers, and see how they like it. Say if the video for 300 is re realeased, they put on it " As made fun of in Meet the Spartans", or get together and work a deal so one makes a movie, another takes the mickey, and money is made twice over for the same film. Seems some studios don't have a sense of humour. What do they expect ? They should consider what we, the movie and TV goers want, and we want films, and parodies etc. of such films. Get over yourselves !

I recall the idea of composite characters, in a similar way that The Towering Inferno, and some other films, like Patton, were made from more than one source, and I guess if that is the way they wanted to portray the Nagasaki and Hiroshima stories, they can, but on the other hand, if there were two real historical characters, why should they not have been portrayed seperately, and just make the movie as long as it needs to be to do so. Imagine if you were someone who had done something to get yourself played in a film, but the producers and director decided you were too similar to some other schmuck, and yous were fused together like Brundle and Fly, how would you feel ? Especially if the other guy you were so alike to was a real egg, as we say here. ( And in NZ egg is an insult - watch Boy - my other pick for Best Picture had it got nominated ). Chris the Russian Christopher Lilly 06:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to answer your first question before I head off to bed (getting late here) as to why Disney would raise a stink about the unlicenced use of its characters in a public bathroom, see Trademark dilution and Genericized trademark. If a company allows any unlicenced use of its trademarks, it eliminates any legal standing for that company to then legally defend its trademarks in other uses. In other words, if it allows one user to "get away" with using the trademark in an unlicenced manner, then it, by default, cannot then stop anyone else from using it. In otherwords, companies are not legally allowed to selectively pursue some trademark violations but not others. If they do, then the defense "yeah, but you let THEM do it" becomes a legally viable defense. So, if Disney wants to protect its right to control the use of its characters, it has to stop all unauthorized uses. If it lets a daycare or a public restroom use Mickey Mouse, it would have no legal standing to then stop, say, a pornographic film maker from creating unauthorized Mickey Porn... --Jayron32 06:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

This thread reminds me of the quote from, was it Pablo Picasso?, "good artists borrow, great artists steal." Pfly (talk) 09:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

q:T. S. Eliot The Sacred Wood although maybe he stole it from Picasso. meltBanana 09:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank You all again. That clarifies that. So free advertising alone would not be enough to stop a lawsuit, even if some from Disney™ thought it might be useful to have Mickey and Donald - if even on a loo - makes them look more like Goofy though, or at least the Grinch, for taking such action. I guess if one owns a character, they have the right to protect it, and I am sure I would, although I would be interested in making a deal of some kind if someone wants to use what I came up with, and I considered it in my interests to let them, for some kind of quid pro quo - although I think I would want more than just one pound. What then is this idea that some works become public domain after so many years ? I certainly cannot see Shakespeare ( or Francis Bacon ) having a fit over reprints or performance of his plays after 400 years. In the end, as long as the law is clear and fair, I suspect we have nothing to complain about.Chris the Russian Christopher Lilly 04:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

song from acura commercial

This new acura commercial features a beautiful, minimalistic pizzicato piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2v9AJuajoA

Any idea what it is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.210.182.9 (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be simply called Human, or perhaps that is the artist, details here. meltBanana 03:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

musical instrument

Hello, I would like to know the name of the musical instrument used for the theme tune of Midsomer Murders. I know it is not touched when being played but would like to know more about it. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summerswallow (talk • contribs) 17:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's the eeeeeeerie theremin. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

In the key of eeeeee? Clarityfiend (talk) 04:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)